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the economics of crypto-markets
Some Crypto Quibbles with Threadneedle Street
September 16, 2014 September 16, 2014 / Robert Sams / 13 Comments
Last week the Bank of England published its Quarterly Bulletin, which contained two detailed papers on digital currencies. The Bank deserves credit for writing such a thoughtful review of this space, which was clearly the product of thorough and open-minded research.
One of the two papers titled Innovations in payment technologies and the emergence of digital currencies is noteworthy for pointing out the potential applications of decentralised crypto ledger systems for financial services. Given that I'm co-founder of a new company devoted to such applications, I'm delighted to see that a G10 central bank has the foresight to see this. There will be many points of intersection between private sector innovation here and the regulatory mandate of a central bank.
But you, my readers, are interested in the cutting edge of cryptonomics thinking, so I want to instead discuss the Bank's second paper, The economics of digital currencies, because I take issue with parts of its analysis. In brief, I believe that the authors have incorrectly analysed the cost structure of digital currency systems and, as a result, incorrectly generalise some problems faced by digital currencies like Bitcoin to digital currencies in general.
The Costs of Mining and Transaction Fees
Ok, first a quick review of mining. We'll assume the Bitcoin protocol as our template. The micro economics of mining are actually quite simple. To win the mining award (currently, a 25 bitcoin "coinbase" award + block's TX fees), you have to solve a hash-based proof-of-work problem, which involves using a machine to compute the double sha256 hash of a block of TX over and over until you hit a value below a certain target, which is defined by the protocol's current difficulty. Difficulty resets every 2016 blocks, increasing if the average duration between solved blocks is below 10 minutes, decreasing if the average duration is above 10 minutes. The scheme insures that average time between blocks approximates 10 minutes.
Now, the probability that a given hash "solves" the problem is precisely defined by difficulty. So, mining profitability is a function these four variables:
Current difficulty
The efficiency of mining (converting electricity into hashes)
The price of bitcoin (market value of mining award)
The price of electricity
The efficiency of mining really boils down to this simple ratio: GHs/kWh. How many Gigahashes per second can your hardware compute for a given unit of electricity (including electricity consumed in cooling the machines, etc).
And the dynamic reset of difficulty basically ensures that only those running machines with the highest GHs/kWh ratio and paying the lowest cost per kWh will mine in the long run, as everyone else will be mining unprofitably and drop out of the network. It's almost a textbook model of perfect competition.
Now, what I think often gets missed here is that the costs of mining bitcoin are entirely a function of the price of bitcoin. If the price of bitcoin goes up, mining becomes profitable and more nodes join the network, which drives up difficulty making mining no longer profitable again. If the price goes down, mining becomes unprofitable at current difficulty, more nodes drop off the network, which drives difficulty down, making mining profitable again.
This dynamic is obscured by the fact that investments in mining hardware have driven GHs/kWh up relentlessly over the last few years, so difficulty rarely declines with bitcoin price, but the dynamic still applies: the price of bitcoin determines the cost of mining.
Failure to appreciate this fact leads to arguments like this one in the BoE paper:
Moreover, to the extent that miners' expected marginal revenue exceeds their expected marginal costs, miners' costs are likely to increase over time. This should occur even if no additional people start to mine and independently from any increase in the number of transactions per block. This is because distributed systems involve a negative externality that causes overinvestment in computer hardware. The negative externality emerges because the expected marginal revenue of individual miners is increasing in the amount of computing power they personally deploy, but the difficulty of the problem they must each solve (and hence their marginal cost) is increasing in the total amount of computing power across the entire network. Individual miners do not take into account the negative effect on other miners of their investment in computing resources. Economic theory would therefore suggest that in equilibrium, all miners inefficiently overinvest in hardware but receive the same revenue as they would have without the extra investment.
Can you spot the error? It's right there in the first sentence: "to the extent that miners' expected marginal revenue exceeds their expected marginal costs, miners' costs are likely to increase over time." This is a fallacy of composition.
What we really have here is the familiar pattern of Knightian uncertainty faced by entrepreneurs. The miner must make a capital outlay in advance for his mining equipment (to get an edge over the competition with new kit delivering a higher GHs/kWh ratio), but he doesn't know what the price of bitcoin will be once he starts winning blocks, nor does he know what the difficulty will be, which will be a function of Bitcoin price and the capital investment of his competitors.
Boom, bust.. it's all the same, the fixed costs of mining hardware are internalised by the miner, those costs are not an externality as the author's argue. The cost of mining will be dictated by the price of bitcoin, that is, the market value of the mining award, and difficulty reset enforces the long-run equilibrium condition whereby hashing costs = market value of mining award. Even changes in the variable costs of mining (the price of a kWh, basically), don't change the long-run costs of mining, as an increase in electricity prices ceteris paribus should cause difficulty to decline and a decrease should cause difficulty to increase. The cost of mining a block will converge to the market value of the mining award.
I'm not an economist, but back in January I suspected that the economics profession would have trouble with this implication of the Bitcoin protocol, when I wrote:
So the exchange value of the mining award determines the marginal costs rather than the other way round. An economist might find that pretty weird, but that is how it works.
And that is how it works. Economists are used to thinking in terms of prices (ephemeral market stuff) being a function of costs (stuff that is "material" and "real", like a production function). But the way the Bitcoin protocol works, the hashing costs of the network are a function of the mining award's market value. I'm not saying it's a nice feature of the protocol. But it is what it is.
And that's why all that investment in mining equipment is not a negative externality, at least from the perspective of mining costs.
But there is different way in which capital investment in mining equipment creates an externality, a way that the authors did not address.
Mining Centralisation
If there is a negative externality to the relentless quest to make mining a positive expected value lottery by investing in new gear that increases GHs/kWh, it's that the number of mining nodes decreases as a result of this process. Mining becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. To run a profitable mining operation, one must run machines with an above average GHs/kWh and below average electricity cost. This is specialised hardware with limited production runs and requiring a non-trivial capital outlay.
A network made up of a few large mining nodes is basically a centralised system with none of the benefits centralisation might bring. What Satoshi envisioned was a one-cpu-one-vote distributed system, people mining on commodity CPU or GPU hardware. That's not what has evolved, and this is a serious problem for Bitcoin and other digital currencies with protocols designed along a similar pattern.
It might be tempting to think that the amortised cost of that hardware somehow gets baked into the cost of mining the network, as the author's of the BoE paper do, but those costs are only faced by the miner. It may turn out that the ROI of the latest 28nm mining rigs is negative at current prices. Too bad for the miner who purchased it, but he'll still mine if the variable costs (the electric bill) are less than the expected mining award. The market value of the hardware itself will decline to the point where the ROI is no longer negative.
And this Knightian boom/bust dynamic raises some questions about the future of mining investment. R&D in specialised mining gear can really go one of two ways. The first scenario is that there will continue to be an edge in capital investment in improving GHs/kWh, in which case capital investment in mining will continue to concentrate mining in few hands, a "bad" outcome.
The other scenario is that the gains from further optimisation's reach a stage where they are too costly to be worth it and R&D switches to commoditizing the currently most efficient designs, in which case the centralising effects of mining investment go into reverse, a "good" outcome. Whichever way it goes, it is still the case that the mining costs of the network are determined by the market value of the mining award. That's equilibrium.
So, if there is a negative externality inherent in Bitcoin mining, it is the negative externality of centralisation not of costs.
On the sustainability of low transaction fees
I want to focus on another dimension to this mining cost story. So far we have focused on the role that miners play in hashing blocks. But miners actually do two things: in addition to hashing blocks, they also perform transaction verification. The author's of the BoE paper seem to conflate the two processes:
Low transaction fees for digital currency payments are largely driven by a subsidy that is paid to transaction verifiers (miners) in the form of new currency. The size of this subsidy depends not only on the current price of the digital currency, but also on miners' beliefs about the future price of the digital currency. Together with the greater competition between miners than exists within centralised payment systems, this extra revenue allows miners to accept transaction fees that are considerably below the expected marginal cost of successfully verifying a block of transactions.
It's that last sentence I take issue with. The "marginal cost of successfully verifying a block of transactions" is the cost of running the scripts on each TX in the block and verifying the digital signatures. The computational costs here are tiny compared to the cost of hashing the block, which plays no role in TX verification whatsoever. Hashing is there to raise the cost of a Sybil attack, nothing more.
What's confusing about cryptocurrency is that there are these two different costs, hashing and verification, and two different sources of paying for them: seigniorage (the coinbase award) and TX fees. How the pair of costs and revenues match up is a protocol design consideration.
Proof-of-Work (SHA256 hash problem) Coinbase (25 bitcoins)
Transaction verification Transaction fees
In the case of Bitcoin, a miner has no control over the size of the coinbase award, but he does control which TX's go into the block he's currently hashing. So basic economic theory dictates that a miner will include a transaction if and only if the expected value of the TX's fee is greater than his marginal cost of verifying that transaction. The costs due to proof-of-work do not come into the decision at all.
It makes sense to think of proof-of-work and TX verification as two separate subsystems with their own respective sources of financing: proof-of-work financed by coinbase and transaction verification financed by transaction fees. A digital currency protocol could follow this pattern and some do (Ethereum, for example). Bitcoin, however, is different. Its protocol dictates that the coinbase award halves every two years and never exceeds a cumulative total of 21m coins, which means that at some point both hashing costs and verification costs must be paid out of TX fees alone.
I've pointed out before that this aspect of Bitcoin's protocol design is self-defeating in the long run. The market for media of exchange will gravitate towards those systems with the lowest transaction costs, and in the case of proof-of-work digital currencies, that means those protocols that forever subsidise hashing costs with the coin's seigniorage (no supply cap). And even if that were not the case and Bitcoin remained the dominant digital currency, the protocol will need to change to incorporate a mandatory minimum fee that is sufficiently large to incentivise enough hashing to secure the network. I say "mandatory" because there is a collective action problem here in that an individual miner has no incentive to exclude a transaction whose fee exceeds his marginal verification costs, even if the aggregate effect of this rational behaviour is that the total TX fees are insufficient to support a hashing difficulty that secures the network.
Which brings me to the author's bleak conclusion:
The eventual supply of digital currencies is typically fixed, however, so that in the long run it will not be possible to sustain a subsidy to miners. Digital currencies with an ultimately fixed supply will then be forced to compete with other payment systems on the basis of costs. With their higher marginal costs, digital currencies will struggle to compete with centralised systems unless the number of miners falls, allowing the remaining miners to realise economies of scale. A significant risk to digital currencies' sustained use as payment systems is therefore that they will not be able to compete on cost without degenerating — in the limiting case — to a monopoly miner, thereby defeating their original design goals and exposing them to risk of system-wide fraud.
This is only partly right, and partly right for the wrong reasons. First of all, it's not digital currencies that face this problem, but a subset of them that, like Bitcoin, eventually require TX fees to shoulder the entire burden of incentivising proof-of-work. But that is an accidental rather than essential feature of digital currencies. So, the conclusion is only partly right because it does not apply to protocols that finance hashing costs with a perpetual coinbase award.
And right for the wrong reasons… this sentence "With their higher marginal costs, digital currencies will struggle to compete with centralised systems unless the number of miners falls, allowing the remaining miners to realise economies of scale" is wrong because the authors have conflated hashing and verification costs.
I'm not sure I get the "economies of scale" thing in transaction processing systems, but perhaps the author's are thinking of the extreme redundancy that distributed systems require. Transaction verification in a distributed system is redundantly performed by every node, so if there are 5,000 nodes verifying nodes on the system, every TX is verified 5,000 times. Compared to a centralised system that only needs to verify a TX once, it would seem that there is a simple economy of scale linear in the number of nodes in system.
But a centralised system must do much more than verify TX, it must do lots of things that nodes on a distributed system do not have to worry about. The centralised system must protect the server(s) against error and attack, as a centralised system is by definition a system with a single point of failure. You don't have to be a network security expert to appreciate that this is hostile and difficult technical territory. I can't offer estimates on what these additional costs are, but what I do know is that they are a large multiple of transaction verification costs, and exponentially more complicated processes. TX verification–parsing the blockchain and doing a bunch of ECDSA signature verifications–is easy and cheap by comparison.
So it is by no means obvious that the total costs of TX verification are lower in a centralised system than in a decentralised or distributed one, and it may in fact be the other way round. But either way, we can say two things with confidence:
The costs of distributed TX verification are a small fraction of the fees charged by legacy payment systems. Unlike hashing, this is not a costly computation even when multiplied by a large number of verifying nodes.
The costs of distributed TX verification will decline over time with improvements in computational efficiency, bandwidth, etc.
But the one thing that distributed systems must do that centralised systems do not have to worry about is a mechanism for achieving consensus on the authoritative state of the ledger. For Bitcoin and many other digital currencies, this mechanism is hash-based proof-of-work, and it is crucial to appreciate the fact that verification and proof-of-work hashing are separate processes with independent cost functions.
And it may turn out that the proof-of-work blockchain isn't the best mechanism for achieving consensus anyway. There are other decentralised consensus algorithms used in projects like Ripple, Stellar, and Hyperledger that do not rely on energy intensive hashing problems to achieve consensus.
Proof-of-Work as "manufactured scarcity"
Now that proof-of-work is liberated from the misconception that it is somehow behind TX verification we can bring some really interesting economic properties of proof-of-work into relief.
As long as there is long-term growth in demand for the coin and the coinbase award is perpetual, seigniorage should be more than sufficient to cover the costs of proof-of-work. That idea alone is, I think, really interesting. Here's what I mean.
There is a long-standing objection to private fiat money schemes advocated by Hayek and others that goes something like this. Media of exchange are near-substitutes. (This maybe false assumption, but lets go with it and set aside the economics of network effects, etc.) And the marginal costs of producing the media are almost zero, so if a privately produced fiat money is a success, the seigniorage that accrues to the issuer will be substantial. This will invite more and more competition producing more and more media of exchange. Invoke that near-substitutes assumption and, bingo, privately produced money gets driven down to the marginal cost of its production, which is basically zero. Privately produced money is impossible because of free market competition and the the near-zero marginal cost of producing it.
In my opinion, the most important innovation of hash-based proof-of-work isn't its solution to the problem of distributed consensus, for which there are arguably better solutions. Rather, the real innovation is the way in which this energy intensive defence against the Sybil attack makes the marginal cost of proof-of-work fiat money meaningfully non-zero, refuting the argument above. The scheme's seigniorage doesn't really accrue to anyone. Instead, it gets burned up in hashing blocks, where the marginal cost of producing a new set of coins equals the cost of solving the hash problem on the block that brings the new coins into existence. There is no coin "issuer", scarcity comes into existence ex nihilo.
And this "seigniorage burning" isn't a complete waste, as my metaphor might suggest and an economist will wrongly suspect as "inefficient", for it has the side-effect of bootstrapping a solution to the distributed consensus problem and thereby creating a distributed payment system on which the value can be transferred (a coin can't be scarce if it can be double spent). After all, shouldn't seigniorage be spent on a public good? I think that this is conceptually beautiful, and it deserves to be a chapter in the micro foundations of money economics, whatever its ultimate fate ends up being. The first credible scheme for credibly rationing the supply of privately produced fiat currency.
The dominant narrative to-date has been that digital currencies like Bitcoin have value because of the utility of the distributed payments system combined with an (eventually) fixed coin supply. I think that the latter belief is unfounded. It's not the fixed supply of a coin that makes it scarce, but rather the marginal cost of producing the coin that makes it so.
There can be demand for coin because of the expectation that it will be demanded more in future and therefore increase in price (speculative demand), and there can be demand for coin because you want to hold a coin balance to facilitate transactions (transactional demand). A coin may embody demand from both sources, but the former implies the latter or else the coin's value rests on some sort of "greater fool" phenomena.
The entire history of monetary thinking can probably be told from the perspective of the tension between these two sources of demand, the tension created by a single object embodying the properties of both store-of-value and medium-of-exchange. The pursuit of purchasing power stability in this object isn't some hubristic policy ideal like the taming of the business cycle or full employment. It is intrinsic to the very idea of money.
A volatile medium-of-exchange is a poor medium-of-exchange, and it is almost inconceivable that a free market would ever converge on a unit of account where the numeraire of all exchange was among the most volatile of assets. Just consider the cost of extracting relative prices in that scenario! We'd have to develop an alternative unit-of-account, which is another way of saying the market would never select such a coin as the unit-of-account in the first place. Trade requires a reliable measuring stick.
This is my favourite paragraph from the BoE paper:
In order to address a need to respond to variation in demand, a more flexible rule would be required. For example, the growth rate of the currency supply could be adjusted to respond to transaction volumes in (close to) real time. Alternatively, a decentralised voting system could be developed. Finally, variant schemes could embrace existing monetary systems by seeking to match official broad money data or to target a fixed exchange rate, although this would require the abandonment of part of the schemes' original ideology.
A more flexible money supply rule behind digital currencies is required. After all, even commodity money has a somewhat elastic supply function. If the price of gold hovers above the marginal cost of pulling gold out of the ground, more gold supply will hit the market. Digital currency with a deterministic money supply function is not a feature but a limitation of early, first designs. And a capped supply function like Bitcoin's is a bug on microeconomic grounds alone, as we discussed above.
But there's no reason to jump to the conclusion that the "original ideology" must be abandoned in order to implement certain stability schemes. For example, the coinbase award could be made a function of difficulty deflated by the change in GHs/kWh (improvements in hardware efficiency). Such a scheme would keep the coin price of a kWh roughly constant. A fixed exchange rate without abandoning the "original ideology". Ok, it's not a complete proposal, but you get the point. We've barely scratched the surface of this technology.
One of the (many) ways in which fiat money is weird and counter-intuitive is how it has value in the first place. The stock and bond markets have value because of the NPV of expected future income flows. But the aggregate value of the money stock is like value created out of nothing. It's the value of pure liquidity.
So I want to offer a variation on the trust-less theme here: nobody can be trusted with the seigniorage generated from this value.
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Emails show Missouri lobbyist's efforts to help expelled son
May 3rd, 2019 by Associated Press	in Missouri News
FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 9, 2017, file photo, lights shine on the Missouri Capitol as guests arrive for an inaugural ball in Jefferson City, Mo. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner, File)
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) — A Missouri lobbyist strategizing how to advance a measure to help college students like his son who have been disciplined for sex-discrimination complaints suggested pushing the idea that the real problem on campuses is not rape but women regretting casual sex, emails obtained by the Associated Press show.
The documents offer a glimpse into how the connected Capitol insider worked to craft legislation and lobbied lawmakers to change how colleges and universities across the state handle claims of sexual harassment and rape after his own son's expulsion. The proposals, which appear unlikely to pass this year, have been slammed by one critic as "revenge legislation."
The emails, obtained through an open-records request, show lobbyist Richard McIntosh sent detailed edits last year to legislative staffers writing the House version of the Title IX overhaul. One edit that appears to be from McIntosh recommends adding "specific language allowing decisions prior to this legislation to be reviewed." That would enable McIntosh's son to appeal his expulsion to a state panel on which his mother sits.
The federal Title IX law bars sex-based discrimination in education, including sexual harassment and assault.
In one November email, McIntosh asked staffers to add a provision to make the changes take effect immediately if signed into law.
"Do you think that passes the smell test in the House to garner the number of votes for an emergency clause?" McIntosh wrote.
Emails also give insight into McIntosh's strategy to persuade lawmakers to enact the proposals.
He suggested taking a "couple of shots at the rape equals regret wouldn't hurt" in a February email to Republican Sen. Cindy O'Laughlin, which he also forwarded to other supporters shortly before a Senate Education Committee hearing on the legislation. The email includes a link to a blog on the men's rights website avoiceformen.com in which the author argues "women, more than men, regret casual sex, and it is these unsatisfying sexual unions caused by regret — not rape — that is the real sex problem on campus."
Sexual assaults are among the most underreported types of crime, according to researchers, and false reports are rare. FBI statistics show only 2-8 percent of sexual assault reports turn out to be false.
A column from conservative news website Daily Wire that McIntosh shared with House bill sponsor Rep. Dean Dohrman and legislative staffers argues the #MeToo movement is an example of "mass hysteria" and compared it to the Salem witch trials. In that metaphor, the modern "witches" are people accused of rape.
Pending Missouri bills pushed by McIntosh would allow accused students to hire attorneys and cross-examine witnesses, including their accusers. Cases could be appealed to a panel known as the Administrative Hearing Commission, which currently includes McIntosh's wife and the mother of his son.
Proponents of changing Title IX proceedings said the current process does not give accused students a fair shot at defending themselves.
Colleges and universities, victims' rights advocates and the Missouri NAACP president all oppose the effort, citing concern about the potential chilling effect on victims.
Dohrman has said McIntosh asked him to carry the legislation and said McIntosh told him that his son was expelled following a Title IX complaint at Washington University, a private school in St. Louis. The specific allegations are not public.
McIntosh has previously declined to comment when asked by AP about his son's expulsion and did not return requests for comment Wednesday. His wife, Audrey Hanson McIntosh, also did not return AP requests for comment.
It's not uncommon for lobbyists to work directly with legislative staffers to draft bills, said Mike Reid, the lobbyist for the lobbying group Missouri Society of Governmental Consultants. He defended the practice, saying "many lobbyists are the experts in certain areas."
McIntosh's emails also indicate his wife played a role in the legislative effort.
He suggested in November that House staff add the "AHC language that I sent you from Audrey yesterday." He listed both his and his wife's personal contact information in an October email to the House bill sponsor and staffers.
The efforts have been aided by wealthy St. Louis businessman and Washington University trustee David Steward, who co-founded World Wide Technology. McIntosh has lobbied for World Wide Technology since 2000.
The recently formed Missouri Campus Due Process Coalition is bankrolled by Kingdom Principles, a nonprofit that is at least partly funded by Steward. McIntosh is listed as the registered agent for Kingdom Principles and was among 29 lobbyists the group hired for the 2019 session.
After the Kansas City Star first reported on the link between the legislation and McIntosh's son last week, Republican Senate Majority Leader Caleb Rowden said it's doubtful the bill would come up for debate again this session. The deadline to pass bills is May 17.
"It's unfortunate that something of this magnitude that maybe should require attention was brought about in this way," Rowden told reporters. "Hopefully it doesn't greatly diminish the more robust policy conversation that can and should happen around Title IX."
Republican House Speaker Elijah Haahr on Thursday said he does not plan to bring the bill up for debate in the House this session.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Talking Point: So, What Are The Chances We'll See A 'New' Nintendo Switch In 2021? – Nintendo Life
What's that? Did someone say 'Switch Pro'? Oooh, 'New Nintendo Switch', is it!? A more powerful variant with 4K resolution Deep Learning Super Sampling? 60 frames-per-second? Carbon fibre styling? Swiss Army Switch?...
It wasn't long after the Switch launched back in 2017 that rumours of a hardware revision started circling. You name it, it's been proposed by somebody, and while we've done our best to follow our noses and document credible scuttlebutt regarding a potential revised model of Nintendo's handheld hybrid, sorting wild speculation from well-founded theories based on evidence can be tough when Nintendo are so full of surprises.
Masters of photo manipulation, us.
The release of the handheld-only Switch Lite in 2019 shed some light on SoC revision rumours, but even that caught some onlookers by surprise. A Switch that doesn't switch!? That's the stupidest idea ever! Oh, hang on...
It's clear that Nintendo has something in the pipeline, though, be it a Switch 'Pro' or a 'New Nintendo Switch'. The current console has overtaken several legacy systems in sales terms and is even outpacing the mighty Wii at the time of writing, and Nintendo will want to keep that pace up.
But will we see a new model this year? Well, analysts seem to think so, but some of them were predicting an upgraded version two years ago. As for Team NL, opinion is split. Below we present some of the points we've been discussing, and at the bottom is a poll — we'd love to hear your thoughts!
So, let's take a look at the (Switch) pros and cons for a potential Switch hardware revision sometime in 2021. We begin with the arguments against...
The naysayers amongst us believe — quite reasonably — that the impetus to introduce a new Switch model this year just isn't there while the regular version is selling by the truckload. Simply put, Nintendo doesn't need a new console to drive interest and anything it does put out would likely cannibalise sales of the current model.
It's an age-old dilemma for successful hardware manufacturers: when is the best time to sacrifice the golden goose and invest in the future?
if the 'old' model continues to sell like hot cakes, there's no reason at all to rush a flashy gateau to market
Given the events of the past year, it's likely that whatever plans Nintendo had have been shifted back by several months, if not due to production issues then by re-evaluating the release schedule after an unforeseeable lockdown-fueled sales boost. Yes, business is booming and a new console (a more powerful one, at least) really needs a new game or two to show it off; a Zelda or a Metroid Prime 4, for example. If they're not ready yet, and if the 'old' model continues to sell like hot cakes, there's no reason at all to rush a flashy gateau to market.
On the topic of those Switches flying off shop shelves right now, all those millions of people who picked up a new console — perhaps a flashy Monster Hunter one or that Red & Blue Super Mario number — might not be too happy if a month later there's a a shiny new variety they could have bought instead.
Nope, even if Nintendo originally planned to release a new Switch this year, there's no chance they'll risk disrupting the sales momentum they've got going right now.
Alternatively...
Yes way!
As we've seen with Nintendo's decades-long history of hardware revisions, a modest upgrade can work wonders by offering tweaks and improvements that give fervent fans an opportunity to buy something new — sometimes multiple times — without deserting a hard-won customer base still buying your Animal Crossings and your Mario Kart 8s. It's this thinking that created the Nintendo DS and 3DS 'families' of systems, and we've already had the first addition to the Switch dynasty with Switch Lite.
a modest upgrade can work wonders by offering tweaks and improvements that give fervent fans an opportunity to buy something new — sometimes multiple times — without deserting a hard-won customer base
If we look back at the 3DS timeline specifically, the XL variant arrived around eighteen months after the original, and the New 3DS launched just over three-and-a-half years later. Switch launched in March 2017, Switch Lite arrived eighteen months later in September 2019 and the original console will be four years old in a couple of months. Obviously, we're not quite comparing like-for-like here thanks to Switch's hybrid nature, but it's hard to argue that the well-loved launch models picked up by early adopters are looking a bit tired and dog-eared these days. The original model is due a spruce up, and something more comprehensive than an internal 'silent' revision.
And as for not wanting to kill the current model's momentum, Nintendo has been in the game long enough to know that you strike while the iron is hot! You turn the flames right up, give people a second to catch their breath and then whack the dial up to eleven! You've got to keep that ball rolling! Letting up because everything's ticking along just fine and dandy isn't the way to sustain growth in the video game... game.
Hot irons, balls rolling — all aboard the Mixed Metaphor Express: next stop, Switch Pro! You see, we've thrown a train in there now, too.
And who exactly are these millions of new Switch owners who'll be mad if a new model appears? That's just how the half-step console cookie crumbles, we're afraid; it's the same with any iterative upgrade in the tech world. For die-hard Nintendo fans, yes, of course it would be disappointing to spend money on a console only to have a new model turn up a matter of weeks later, but those hardcore fans will have bought a Switch long ago and they'll likely be champing at the bit for a Pro model. No self-respecting Apple aficionado would buy a new iPhone at the end of August, would they? Early adopters are hungry for the new flavour, and casual players will happily play the original or Lite variants.
Yep, mark our words, at some point this year — October or November time, we'd wager — there'll be a new Switch on the block. Probably.
For the record, Nintendo has stated that it's not planning to release a new Switch model "any time soon", although this time last year they specified that no new model would be launched "in 2020". Bearing in mind how careful they are with this sort of language, it's not a stretch to deduce that they've got something planned for the latter half of the year. That's not 'any time soon', right?
Either way, it's clear from all the rampant rumours that there's an appetite for a mid-cycle refresh. Last year we asked you what features you'd want to see in a Switch 'Pro', and from a total of nearly 20,000 votes 'a more powerful CPU' came top of the list (followed by 'increased resolution' and 'a thinner bezel' around the screen). The desire is there, then; Nintendo just needs to figure out how to capitalise on fans' hunger for something new in a way that's additive to its current sales momentum.
That, and it'll need a sweet name. 'Pro', 'New' — they've been done. How about "Nintendo Switch Up"? "Switch On"? "Switchin'"...
Quick, let's get to the poll before it gets worse:
Let us know your thoughts on the potential for a new Switch model this year in the usual place.
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Nintendo is focused on creating new experiences, says its president
Best Zelda Games Of All Time – Nintendo Life


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Weekend 3/4 March: Sladers Yard is CLOSED due to the weather. Apologies for any disappointment. The Café will open again Monday 10am as usual. If you were hoping to come back for a last look at Ways of Seeing Landscape with a view to buying a picture, please do follow the links below, see the show and email us. We will be back in on Monday and can arrange sales and viewings after the end of the show. We need to know which pictures you want!
Four painters who see landscape in entirely different ways, each with roughly a quarter of the gallery space in Sladers Yard in an exhibition that allows the viewer to immerse themselves in one way of seeing after another. To view each artist's work please follow links above.
Anthony Garratt is an experimental painter of landscape. His first show at Sladers Yard includes his first paintings of Dartmoor and the Devon coast since he and his family moved there. Anthony's excited engagement with this wild landscape and its long history speaks in these dynamic paintings. Rushing water, dramatic skies over earth often built up with composites of rusting filings and other materials to give textured weight and authentic colour.
'I have to feel energetic and excited to paint, otherwise it just doesn't work,' Garratt explains. Now in his thirties, he studied design at Chelsea School of Art and at Falmouth and worked as a designer until his painting took over. His exciting installations attract visitor and press attention. Ambitious projects have included four large outdoor canvases painted and fixed in position for a year on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly in 2014. Four on Anglesey followed in 2015. In 2016, Anthony Garratt painted two giant outdoor paintings, one high on the flanks of Mt Snowdon and one hung deep beneath the mountain in an abandoned slate cavern. The project was called High and Low. All the materials, panel and floating apparatus for the high painting were carried by hand up the mountain on the old miners' road in reference to the history of the area. The painting was floated on a boat and left to weather in the elements.
Anne Davies sees landscape as patterns of colour and texture. Memory and imagination feed into her fascinating small paintings. Drawn to semi-industrialised waterfronts, west country harbours, the north of England where she grew up and the Docklands of London are the places her mind goes to when she works. She loves the idea of walking around in a picture rather like a map, discovering the different aspects of place and this is what her paintings invite the viewer's eye to do.
Working on very smooth gessoed boards she paints blocks of colour in acrylic on a raw sienna base and then works them back, drawing into them with pencil, with a freedom of mark-making and a flair for pattern and composition. She has a strong understanding of colour, her palette tends to consist of greens, blues and yellows with sparks of pink and orange. A good deal of white creates feelings of space and light.
She draws every day, working in sketchbooks where she can be completely free, and then paints from the drawings and from photographs she has taken while out in the landscape. Her small beautifully detailed pictures draw one in to marvel at the textures and traces of underpainting that just show through, forming wonderful passages of colour and interesting lines.
Jo Fox has been painting her intriguing sensitive paintings in her studio outside Lyme Regis since 1996. After a foundation at Exeter College of Art, she went on to study a degree in Theatre Design at Croydon College of Art and postgraduate at the National Theatre Studios followed by work as a theatre designer.
In 1996 a move to the west country, near Lyme Regis, coincided with a change from three dimensional theatre design to painting in two dimensions. Combining collage and paint, she uses textured paper and fine plaster to layer her subtle colours, building up fractured images, multiple impressions often of figures within an urban landscape. Jo Fox's landscapes expand around the human forms expressing mood and creating tension, adding to a narrative quality that is integral to her art.
Jo's carefully considered use of colour is particularly appealing. Mostly neutral – and beautiful – fragmented planes are interspersed with small points or lines of vivid colour. The pictures are built up from an intricate framework of enfolding, enclosing layers partly revealing and partly concealing the subject matter. They do not give up their meaning at once. Jo's paintings take time to consider, to approach gently, unexpectedly, open-mindedly. From near and from a distance, Jo Fox's thoughtful workmanship and skill surprise and reward the viewer. Artists who have inspired Jo's paintings include theatre designers Tom Cairns, Antony McDonald, Hildegard Bechtler and artists Joan Eardley, Marlene Dumas and Egon Schiele.
Martyn Brewster's lyrical abstract paintings combine seductive combinations of colour with vigorous poetic compositions producing paintings and pen and ink drawings of the Dorset coast that are collected worldwide. Martyn has lived near the cliffs, open skies and beaches of Southbourne in Dorset for thirty years inspired by the natural landscape, the sea and the light as well as by colour and by the paint itself. Recently he has introduced a more neutral palette which seems to give space for his use of tone – light and dark – and of the contrasting qualities of paint which can be thick or thin, translucent or opaque, defined or free flowing. Beautifully chosen vivid colour speaks out in the quieter surround creating paintings of contemplative power and pleasure.
Award-winning designer craftsman, Petter Southall has been making his distinctive furniture at his studio outside Bridport since 1991. He makes his designs by hand using an innovative combination of traditional Norwegian boat-building and fine cabinet-making techniques. Petter's designs have a distinctive Scandinavian confidence and simplicity. He finds unique beautiful pieces of oak, ash, elm and other Northern European hardwoods, often using wood sourced from the local area to the commission. He specialises in steam bending thick solid boards into the arches, twists, curves and rings so striking in his designs. His work is built to last, using honest through-joinery and as little glue as possible. Finished with natural oils and tactile textures, his furniture is made to be used, bringing pleasure every day to the home, work place or public space.


Ati Maier is one of the favorite artists of this website as seen by glowing reviews here and here. Her work skirts the line between the liberal (bourgeois) arts and the conspiracy-filled world of subculture by virtue of its mix of action-painting technique and an openness to the mysteries which lie beyond the purview of establishment science and politics.
The Jochen Hempel Gallery, Berlin, opened Maier's "The Encounter" yesterday, a new multimedia exhibition of works by the artist which includes paintings on paper, still photographs, and a live-action video. Each element coheres around Maier's inimitable penchant for creating imaginary worlds.
The paintings, for instance, have a distinct design sensibility, particularly in their use of shapes which prompt known imagery from the farthest corners of the cosmos. The artist's rugged line-work is often suggestive of the lunar landscape as we know it from pictures of the various moon landings of the 1960s and '70s. Her swirling primary colors and clashing hard-edge angles are reminiscent of recent telescope photographs of galaxies being born of dark matter and gaseous constellations. Reminiscent; but not exact, as Maier's work is the product of meditative action painting, as opposed to an illustrative practice. If they happen to capture the essential building blocks of the universe it is more due to the way Maier channels the spontaneity and passion that lives in all things rather than mimicking current scientific images.
One particular new painting from this show—that of an orb-shaped tapestry of interwoven colours set against a solid backdrop of warm orange titled "Bloodmoon 2018"—captures the sentiment perfectly in that nothing in the known natural universe looks quite like this (save for her art). In that way Maier has not so much captured a planet as her planet, and hers modulates, undulates, and pressurizes with the tension of shape and color which define its parameters. They must somehow work together, click into place, so as to fit into the space they are given by the artist's chosen medium (in this case, a square piece of paper).
The Space Rider wears a white, orb-shaped helmet, ala the Residents, an Apollo-era spaceman, or some alien character in a science fiction film; yet the likeness to popular culture and technology ends there. Maier's interest in the American space program is limited by the fact that the Space Rider's means of transportation is not the refrigerator-like spaceships of NASA, c. 1969, but rather the medieval emblem of European enchantment: the horse.
The horse's head is also covered by an orb-shaped helmet, which means the two of them, the humanoid and the animal, ride mostly without the use of sight. They have to trust each other as they traverse iconic landscapes such as the Western hills of Wyoming, the cluttered, slogan-filled streets of New York City, and the barren flatlands of Indian territory in New Mexico. Several of these performances feature in the current exhibition—both in completed videos and in still images.
Unlike the paintings, however, the videos contain strong narrative references—the inevitable byproduct of linearity in filmmaking. Still, despite such grounding in contemporary media tropes there remains, as in the paintings, a spontaneous aspect which overrides any attempt to impart storyline or topicality on the films.


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En informatique, la réduction par ordre partiel est une technique pour éviter l'explosion d'états en vérification de modèles, en planification automatique. Les pionniers sont Antti Valmari, Patrice Godefroid, Doron Peled. La réduction par ordre partiel est expliquée dans les livres sur la vérification de modèles.

Références

Intelligence artificielle

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Book file PDF Leon Battista Alberti On Painting Alberti Leon Battista Sinisgalli Rocco. Leon Battista Alberti On Painting A New Translation and November 9th, 2018 - Leon Battista Alberti On Painting is a cardinal work that revolutionized Western art In this volume Rocco Sinisgalli presents a new English translation and critical examination of Alberti s seminal text This volume is richly... A l b e r t i - 2008/Tekster/Alberti - On A l b e r t i - On Painting Introduction Prologue Book One Book Two Book Three Sources Alberti, Leon Battista.
Leon BaAlberttista ti: On Painting _ A NEW TRANSLATION AND CRITICAL EDITION Leon Battista Alberti was one of the most important humanist scholars of the Italian Renaissance.... In addition to painting, designing buildings, and writing scientific, artistic and philosophical treatises, Alberti wrote the first book on Italian grammar and cryptography. Born in Genoa in the year 1404, out of wedlock but immediately legitimatized by his father Lorenzo. Leon's mother, Bianca Fieschi, was a Bolognese widow.
Leon Battista Alberti, one of the most intelligent and original architects of the 15th century, also dedicated a treatise, Della famiglia (1435–44; "On the Family"), to methods of education. Alberti felt that the natural place for education was the home and not scholastic institutions. The…... leon battista alberti o painting Download leon battista alberti o painting or read online here in PDF or EPUB. Please click button to get leon battista alberti o painting book now.
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Leon Battista Alberti: On Painting is a cardinal work that revolutionized Western art. Leon Battista Alberti was one of the most important humanist scholars of the Italian Renaissance. Active in mid-fifteenth-century Florence, he was an architect, theorist, and author of texts on perspective and painting.
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) was one of the most exciting figures of the Italian Renaissance. He wrote the first modern treatise on painting, the first modern manual of classical architecture, and a powerful set of "dialogues" about the princely families of Florence.


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Family discount is offered where there is more than one child attending nursery.
*Fees include breakfasts, a full lunch menu and afternoon tea.


text:
← Killer Storms get Stronger
Climate Deniers: Sinking Fast →
Sea Level Rise: Denial by Bullshit
Posted on June 2, 2018 | 29 Comments
Sea level rise is such a huge problem, and is so undeniable, that climate deniers have gone loony trying to blame it on anything and everyting but global warming. It's not working; the recent idiocy from congressman Mo Brooks trying to blame sea level rise on rocks and dirt filling the oceans didn't increase doubt about human cause like he hoped, rather it raised extreme doubt about his competence. He, and his idea, quickly became a laughingstock. Others have been ridiculed for similarly ridiculout ideas. Now Roy Spencer has joined the crowd with something almost as dumb as rocks.
His "thesis" is that sea level rise before 1950 had to be all natural. His thesis is wrong. He further supposes that since 1950 it has continued to rise at the pre-1950 rate for entirely natural reasons. His further supposition is wrong. Only by using such blatantly false suppositions can he conclude that the human contribution to sea level rise is only 0.3 inches per decade (that's 0.76 mm/yr). His conclusion is wrong.
Let's consider his (and others') first premise, that everything before 1950 had nothing to do with human activity but was all natural. Typically he says "sea level has been rising naturally, for at least 100 years before humans could be blamed."
Here's the CO2 concentration since 1958 according to data from the Mauna Loa atmospheric observatory, and before that from the Law Dome ice core:
The value in 1950 was just about 312 ppm, the pre-industrial level about 278 ppm. That means that in 1950 it was already 34 ppm higher than pre-industrial. Since it's presently about 409 ppm, 26% of the rise due to human activity was already there. Earth to Roy Spencer: 26% is not nothing. It's not even negligible.
What about mankind's influence on global temperature up to 1950? Climate models can estimate how Earth's temperature has changed over time due to many factors, some natural, some not. They are often run with only the natural forcings, leaving out the human contribution, enabling us to compare how it would have changed without mankind's interference to how it changed with human influence. I averaged global temperature (yearly averages) for all model runs using only natural influences, and for all model runs including all forcings (natural + anthropogenic), then computed temperature anomaly using a baseline from 1880 to 1900, and got this:
Clearly the natural-only behavior is not the same "before 1950." But Roy Spencer wants us to believe that pre-1950 the human influence is nothing. Here's the estimated difference which is due to human influence:
Human activity — not natural forces — caused about 0.15°C warming from 1900 to 1950 alone. That's not nothing, it's not even negligible. But in addition, there's good reason to believe Earth had already warmed by about 0.2°C from 1750 to 1900 due to human activity — not natural forces. That makes around 0.35°C warming by 1950 from human influence alone. Earth to Roy Spencer: that's not nothing. It's not even negligible.
Roy Spencer's premise — that the human influence can be neglected before 1950 — is one of the most common techniques of climate deniers in general. In my opinion, it's not just mistaken, not just ludicrous, it's sometimes dishonest, because some people, like Roy Spencer — really ought to know better.
Perhaps Spencer's most hilariously ridiculous comment is when he cautions that "…it is dangerous to extrapolate any short term trends far into the future." Yet that is exactly what he did. He took the sea level trend up to 1950, called it "entirely natural" (when it isn't), then extrapolated it to the present (nearly 70 years). Question for Roy Spencer: when you said your caution against extrapolation, were you paying attention?
The main reason that sea level rise is getting so much attention from climate deniers is that it's such a major and undeniable problem. They can no longer deny that it's happening (except for a few fringe nut-cases). Hence they're scraping below the bottom of the barrel to find any excuse to blame it on anything but the real reason: man-made global warming. Roy Spencer: when you retire, I suggest you buy yourself a lovely beachfront home. May I suggest Miami Beach?
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29 responses to "Sea Level Rise: Denial by Bullshit"
Mitch | June 2, 2018 at 4:06 pm |
The fundamental Spencer problem is what constitutes "natural" pre-1950. Why would sea level be rising naturally prior to 1950 and at what rate? I am waiting for a model.
markogts | June 2, 2018 at 4:11 pm |
Hi, may I ask what negative forcing is causing the cooling before 1880?
Marco | June 3, 2018 at 6:06 am |
Don't you mean right after 1880? If so: the Krakatau eruption
markogts | June 3, 2018 at 11:43 am |
No, I mean the fact that the blue and red line differ before 1880, which seems to imply that there was a human forcing towards cooling and I was wondering what is it. Sulfate aerosols, maybe? Between 1880 and 1910 there is no difference, then the warming forcing appears.
[Response Not necessarily. These are anomalies and the baseline is 1880-1900 so they are offset to have the same average during that period.]
crispy2058 | June 3, 2018 at 7:10 am |
I see cooling in the early 1880s. That would be particulate matter from Krakatoa, wouldn't it? There's a similar dip in the early 1990s from Mount Pinatubo.
Al Rodger | June 2, 2018 at 5:26 pm |
The 'no significant pre1950 AGW' nonsense I feel is easiest debunked by pointing to the forcings driving today's AGW of +0.18ºC/decade and then pointing to the forcings pre-1950 which were pretty close to a third the size. Thus, back of a fag packet, pre-1950 AGW would have been raising temperatures at +0.06ºC/decade. After five decades or so, that would result in roughly +0.15ºC.
You would have to be as dumb as rocks not to understand that. But perhaps the denial these denialists suffer from with AGW makes then as dumb as rocks, so my debunking may be overly complex for the poor darlings.
Lars Träger | June 3, 2018 at 7:11 pm |
It get's better: as the deniers keep pointing out, the relationship between GW gases and resulting warming isn't linear but logarithmic, so the first third of the forcings increase must cause more than a third of the resulting warming. Sorry Roy, you can't have it both ways.
Al Rodger | June 3, 2018 at 10:47 pm |
Do note I was talking "forcings" not CO2. If you tot up the positive anthropogenic climate forcings as set out in IPCC AR5 AII Table 1.2 for the two periods, prior to 1940 and prior to 2010, the forcing ratio is slightly above 3:1. And including the IPCC's best estimate of negative forcing, thr ratio climbs to 4:1. Even at 4:1, the pre-1950 AGW remains significant and poor old Woy shows his denialist credentials rather than his climatologist credentials (not that he has a great deal of those) by ignoring it.
Mark B | June 2, 2018 at 9:45 pm |
I played around with the Church & White data for a bit after reading Spencer's piece. One particularly curious result is that a quadratic fit from the beginning of the data 1880 to 1960 or any later endpoint produces virtually the same curve as the complete data set through 2013. This further suggests that sea level rise "acceleration" has been underway for quite a long time.
I also found a paper that suggests anthropogenic causes (carbon soot) in the Alps starting in the mid-1800s. It's not clear the quantitative contribution to SLR from this, but is another strike against Spencer's premise. ( http://www.pnas.org/content/110/38/15216 )
rabiddoomsayer | June 3, 2018 at 10:05 am |
https://carnegiescience.edu/news/war-plague-no-match-deforestation-driving-co2-buildup. Some put the effect of humans on climate starting thousands of years ago.
Robert Damon | June 4, 2018 at 10:14 pm |
William Ruddiman (University of Virginia) has also written about this. For example, in his book "Plows, Plagues & Petroleum" (2005, Princeton University Press) he argues that humans have been changing the climate for some 8,000 years as a result of agricultural practices. Ruddiman has authored a number of guest articles at realclimate.org over the years, presenting his hypothesis to that audience. A search in Google Scholar will turn up a list of his scientific publications.
Wookey | June 3, 2018 at 11:34 am |
s/ridiculout/ridiculous/
(and point well made). It's good to see that one can't lie about obvious physical matters indefinitely without people noticing. It's bad that it does take some people 20 years to notice that they are being had.
Ed Hummel | June 3, 2018 at 12:55 pm |
Spencer should get into a different line of work. He wrote a book a few years ago that was supposed to debunk the concerns about human caused global warming. However, he stated emphatically that his chapter on economics was the most important one in the book. So, it was obvious to me that his whole premise on denying the dangers and even the reality of human caused global warming was based on his dogmatic belief in the "magic" of the market place and an unfettered global capitalism system. Anything that interferes with that belief has to be debunked, even if there is overwhelming evidence from climate research that demands we change business as usual as rapidly as possible. His latest hypothesis seems to fit that pattern and deserves to be thoroughly debunked as Tamino has done.
bjchip | June 3, 2018 at 5:58 pm |
Perhaps they misread the IPCC statements in this document ?
Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policymakers
The document states in several places that humans were the dominant cause of warming since 1950 or "the mid-twentieth century". Doesn't say none earlier, but clearly identifies when they are CERTAIN of the starting point. There is a reason they picked that point in time to work with and I am betting that it is with the intention of being able to misuse the IPCC statements.
Never regard them as being innocently stupid (some of them are, but the sources of this are not). They are being stupid with malice aforethought, and their intention is far from innocent.
snarkrates | June 3, 2018 at 7:20 pm |
At a certain point, denial by bullshit becomes denial by batshit.
entropicman | June 3, 2018 at 9:02 pm |
Bjchip
The 95% confisence limits for the temperature datasets are all about +/- 0.1C.
Simplifying slightly, the gap between two year's global averages becomes statistically significant when their 95% confidence limits no longer overlap. That is a difference of 0.2C. This is also the difference between 1880 and 1950 average global temperatures, 13.8C and 14.0C
From the IPCC viewpoint "There is no significant warming before1950" means that warming took place between 1880 and 1950, but it took until 1950 for the warming to become statistically significant.
From the climate denier viewpoint it is easy to jump from "no significant warming before1950" to "no warming before1950".
Doc Snow | June 6, 2018 at 9:28 pm |
Yes, for denialati in general "no significant warming" is precisely equal to "no warming." It's a "convenient untruth."
Bob Loblaw | June 8, 2018 at 12:52 am |
To re-phrase that, the result that leads a scientist to say "I'm not quite sure enough to confidently say that that this shows warming" will lead the denialati to say "I'm absolutely certain that there isn't any warming at all".
jgnfld | June 8, 2018 at 9:38 am |
I have to ask: Does one have cancer if their tumor is there but too small to be detected?
Seems like a fair question, doesn't it, jg?
Martin Smith | June 10, 2018 at 4:49 pm |
re jgnfld's cancer question: I had prostate surgery about 8 months ago. Prior to diagnosis, an increasing PSA trend is only meaningful as a sign that further tests are needed. After removal, PSA should drop to 0, so the PSA test becomes a good sign of whether the tumor is still there or not. But the PSA test is only accurate to 0.1 ug/L, so the best test result is: < 0.1 ug/L, which I have had twice now. Knock on wood. 4 of those results over a year is taken to mean the tumor is gone, but…
Doc Snow | June 11, 2018 at 10:41 am |
KiwiGriff | June 3, 2018 at 9:57 pm |
"…it is dangerous to extrapolate any short term trends far into the future."
This is the same Roy Spencer that has been projecting the results of his own short satellite derived temperature series into the future for decades .
The contradictory garbage Spencer has to use to make himself believe there is no risk from climate change are only becoming more obvious over time.
I type this with yet another extreme rainfall event happening right now outside my windows .
Those in denial are beginning to look insane to every one not just the informed.
Rad | June 9, 2018 at 4:56 pm |
Tamino, This comment is off-topic so you will want to delete it. I just want to point you to an interesting sea ice chart by
Lars Kaleschke of Arctic Basin sea ice extent, 1978 through June 7, 2018.
Arctic sea ice is running downhill the cliff in the pole position chasing for another record low. The graph ignores the peripheral seas and concentrates on the inner Arctic Ocean basin. This highlights the potentially remaining sea ice in September better than the total extent. pic.twitter.com/f4PvK9a77E
— Lars Kaleschke (@seaice_de) June 7, 2018
Doc Snow | June 10, 2018 at 12:17 pm |
We shall see what the season brings. The Arctic has a seemingly endless ability to surprise; last year we had record-low extent basically all winter, and suddenly in June melt slowed drastically with a persistent pattern of cool, cloudy weather. The result in September was a year that was bad for ice, but much less bad than most of us expected in May. There's still a lot of influence exerted by natural variability in any given year–including this one.
Of course, the CO2 keeps rising and the planet keeps on warming, and the result of that is as predictable as anyone could wish (or wish against). *Some* year the variability will line up *against* ice extent, and we'll see another year that shocks people, as we were shocked in 2007 and 2012. Could be this year–or not. But it's coming.
Al Rodger | June 10, 2018 at 3:59 pm |
Rad,
That graphic you present here seems at odds with the gaphic here which uses austensibly the same data source. The traces look quite similar but the values plotted are greatly different – early May 2018 6.3M on one and 7.2M on the other, latest 2018 values 6.3M, and 5.9M.
My first thought wa that the graphic had been produced with an Arctic Basin region missing, but I cannot see one that would provide the right adjustment.
As for this year's Arctic melt, pan-Arctic-wise it is very melty in terms of Extent (second to 2016 which was eye-bulgingly melty through the Spring) (this graphic – usually 2 clicks to 'download your attachment'- uses JAXA data and shows the situation with the SIE Anomaly). 2018 is less melty in terms of Area (suggesting a more compact ice pack) and with Volume assessments (eg PIOMAS) suggesting more of ice needs melting relative to recent years. Also it was amazingly snowy this spring and while much of the NH snow-cover has now gone (graphic of Rutger's Snow Lab NH Snow cover anomalies), they are still much larger tha recent years (excepting 2017 which was also very snowy & which had problems melting it).
Phil. | June 10, 2018 at 11:25 pm |
The thing is if you look at the volume results, e.g.
You'll see 1m thick ice where their own measurements show open water?
Al Rodger | June 11, 2018 at 7:36 am |
Phil.,
The DMI are aware of the disparity you highlight as they say "Der kan forekomme forskelle i iskantens placering i de to kort, "Havisens udbredelse" og "Havisens tykkelse og volumen", da modelberegningerne ikke altid stemmer helt overens med satellitsensorernes registrering af isens udbredelse," although obviously that is in Danish which may need translation.
mdenison | June 13, 2018 at 10:34 am |
Judith Curry runs with the same argument: The debate slide 9
You can see that global sea levels were rising steadily long before fossil fuels emissions became substantial. You can also see that the steep increase in emissions following 1950 is associated with very little sea level rise between 1950 and 1990.


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Home Technology Exela Technologies Signs New Logo
Exela Technologies Signs New Logo
Author PressReachPosted on September 20, 2022 September 20, 2022 Categories TechnologyTags editorial, pr, press release, QM
FRANKFURT, Germany, Sept. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Exela Technologies, Inc. ("Exela") (NASDAQ: XELA, XELAP), today announced a contract with a leader in communications across Europe. Exela will utilize its communication services platform to meet the growing customer demand along their digital journey. The initial total contract value ("TCV") is $12 million over the 3-year contract and Exela has already begun delivering its solutions. This new business is part of Exela's ITPS line of business which generated over $874 million in revenue in 2021.
"We are pleased to offer a flexible solution to enable customized solutions for our customer's end clients in a rapidly changing business environment. We look forward to further working with our new customer across Europe as we enable their digital journey," said Vitalie Robu, President of Exela EMEA.
About Exela Technologies
Exela Technologies is a business process automation (BPA) leader, leveraging a global footprint and proprietary technology to provide digital transformation solutions enhancing quality, productivity, and end-user experience. With decades of experience operating mission-critical processes, Exela serves a growing roster of more than 4,000 customers throughout 50 countries, including over 60% of the Fortune® 100. Utilizing foundational technologies spanning information management, workflow automation, and integrated communications, Exela's software and services include multi-industry, departmental solution suites addressing finance and accounting, human capital management, and legal management, as well as industry-specific solutions for banking, healthcare, insurance, and the public sector. Through cloud-enabled platforms, built on a configurable stack of automation modules, and approximately 17,000 employees operating in 21 countries, Exela rapidly deploys integrated technology and operations as an end-to-end digital journey partner.
For more Exela news, commentary, and industry perspectives, visit:
https://investors.exelatech.com/
And please follow us on social:
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The information posted on the Company's website and/or via its social media accounts may be deemed material to investors. Accordingly, investors, media and others interested in the Company should monitor the Company's website and its social media accounts in addition to the Company's press releases, SEC filings and public conference calls and webcasts.
Certain statements included in this press release are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as "may", "should", "would", "plan", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict", "potential", "seem", "seek", "continue", "future", "will", "expect", "outlook" or other similar words, phrases or expressions. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding our industry, future events, estimated or anticipated future results and benefits, future opportunities for Exela, and other statements that are not historical facts. These statements are based on the current expectations of Exela management and are not predictions of actual performance. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in Exela's Annual Report and other securities filings. In addition, forward-looking statements provide Exela's expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this communication. Exela anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause Exela's assessments to change. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Exela's assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.
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You may have recognized Alyssa and Keith from their maternity session we did on Balboa Island earlier this year. We are always so grateful to have the opportunity to be part of the growth of a family. It's such a blessing to see the little ones grow throughout the years, and all their little personalities shine in front of our lenses.
Alyssa and Keith, your family is gorgeous and I look forward to seeing the little guys continue to grow. Chase and Ryan, you handsome little guys, keep laughing and have fun with Mommy & Daddy. XOXO!


At Paw Pad we pride ourselves on providing a professional reliable and personal service. Our home environment enables your dog to feel more relaxed than at traditional grooming salons. All VIP's are provided with regular bathroom breaks, treats (with owners permission) and cuddles as standard.
We only use natural, chemical free shampoo and finishing sprays in our studio. The unique blends can increase the health of the coat and skin and our paw conditioning treatment will relieve cracked dry and rough paws (and noses too!).
Our Resident VIP is Bugsy a very friendly working cocker spaniel. He loves a good play and is at ease with other dogs and people so you can be assured a warm friendly welcome. He is the ultimate in pampered pooch and your dog will enjoy the same level of treatment throughout the visit.
Pampering sessions are typically available in 2 hour slots and although we are happy for you to view the grooming studio and equipment we do not encourage owners to stay during the grooming process. Sessions are available to small and medium dogs including (but not exclusively): Shi-Tzu, bichon, all poodles and poodle crosses, cocker/springer/cavalier/sussex spaniels, westies, Yorkshire and Tibetan terriers, pugs, bulldogs and all small and medium cross breeds. If you are unsure if we can accommodate you please contact us with any questions.


text:
Jeremy Cubert
Wings of Light by Jeremy Cubert
Live Recording - December 3, 2022 at Clear Skies Meadery, Gaithersburg, Maryland
Evening Star by Jeremy Cubert
Saturday, December 3, 2022 @ 4:00PM — 8:00PM (EST, UTC-05) Sat, Dec 3, 2022 @ 4:00PM — 8:00PM (EST, UTC-05)
Clear Skies Meadery, 325 Main Street, Gaithersburg
Join me for an evening of music and mead at Clear Skies Meadery!
Saturday, October 1, 2022 @ 4:00PM — 8:00PM (EDT, UTC-04) Sat, Oct 1, 2022 @ 4:00PM — 8:00PM (EDT, UTC-04)
Come on out to Clear Skies Meadery to enjoy great food and drink and listen to solo Chapman Stick.
Saturday, September 17, 2022 @ 10:00AM — 12:00PM (EDT, UTC-04) Sat, Sep 17, 2022 @ 10:00AM — 12:00PM (EDT, UTC-04)
Brookland Farmer's Market, 716 Monroe St NE, Washington, DC 20017
Saturday, August 27, 2022 @ 4:00PM — 8:00PM (EDT, UTC-04) Sat, Aug 27, 2022 @ 4:00PM — 8:00PM (EDT, UTC-04)
Come on out to a show at Clear Skies Meadery. Fantastic food and mead provided by Clear Skies!
Solo Chapman Stick, Free of Charge
Alan Scott Band (Opening for War)
Tally Ho Theater, 19 W Market St, Leesburg, Virginia
Playing with the Alan Scott Band opening for War
Jeremy Cubert - Solo Chapman Stick
Saturday, June 18, 2022 @ 4:00PM — 8:00PM (EDT, UTC-04) Sat, Jun 18, 2022 @ 4:00PM — 8:00PM (EDT, UTC-04)
Free event with great mead and food served by Clear Skies Meadery
Saturday, May 21, 2022 @ 4:00PM — 8:00PM (EDT, UTC-04) Sat, May 21, 2022 @ 4:00PM — 8:00PM (EDT, UTC-04)
Event is free with great mead and food served by Clear Skies Meadery
Train Tracks by Jeremy Cubert
jacubert@gmail.com


text:
A case for workers' control
Submitted by Anon on 3 May, 2005 - 11:32
By Colin Foster
Tories are saying that pay-outs to top bosses should be curbed, and New Labour is saying no such action is necessary. That's a measure of where Blair and Brown have taken the Labour Party.
On 25 April the fund management group Foreign and Colonial called for insurance firms to require companies to make directors pay back bonuses if company's profit performance subsequently turns out to have been poor.
Two years ago, the then leading Tory MP Archie Norman tried to get legislation in Parliament to stop pay-outs to company bosses who failed to bring in profits. The Government decided to ask for research, and then, in January this year, said that "current rules are working" and it would not legislate.
Since then Rover has collapsed. Its four top bosses, who bought it for £10, had paid themselves tens of millions of pounds out of the company as it headed towards collapse.
Peter Davis took £2 million in bonuses out of Sainsbury just before the company slumped into the red. Luc Vandevelde, Roger Holmes, and Vittorio Radice took more than £8 million out of Marks and Spencer as its sales dwindled.
Six directors of the Jarvis group pocketed £807,000 in bonuses as its share price was wiped out. Former Shell boss Phil Watts was handed £1 million when he resigned in March 2004, although his bonuses had been based on claims of increased oil reserves that were plain untrue.
Archie Norman, and the fund managers at Foreign and Colonial, have no objection to top bosses pocketing huge wealth. Their objection is that the wrong (incompetent) bosses are pocketing the loot, leaving less for the right ones (including, they think, themselves).
But who judges the bosses' competence? Themselves and their friends. No wonder they reckon they deserve huge bonuses.
A detailed report on bosses' pay in Britain's ten biggest companies, published on 18 April, found that their total pay had increased by 7% in 2004 - much more than almost all workers' pay, of course - but that was a sharp drop on an average rise of 27% per year for the previous five years.
The bosses received more in bonuses than they did on salary, and, despite all the Government's stories of how pension cuts are necessary with an ageing population, pension pay-outs also exceeded salary. In 2004, the average transfer value of that single year's increase in the bosses' accrued pension entitlements was equivalent to 118% of their salaries.
The socialist answer, in short, is that workers should control the industries they work in, and monitor managers' competence. Managers should be elected by the workforce and paid an ordinary skilled worker's wage.
A Dispute with "Revolutionary History" - Reply to John McIlroy
Response to John McIlroy
Boycott, or build links?
Why Longbridge closed without a fight
Strike ballot kicks off
AWL: what we are, what we do and why we do it
We are still at the mercy of irrational social and political forces, even while our power...
Solidarity 072, 28 April 2005


Students in AUS graduate programs find career advancement opportunities and personal enrichment. The university's cross-disciplinary graduate courses and specialized programs attract excellent students who pursue creative and original work under the guidance of highly qualified, dedicated faculty members recruited from the most prestigious universities in the United States, Canada and around the world.
Admission to all AUS graduate programs is processed through the Office of Enrollment Management. Graduate admission committees within each program review the candidate's application and make recommendations for admission.


text:
package pt.up.fc.dcc.mousetrap;

import android.content.DialogInterface;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.AlertDialog;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.AdapterView;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.GridView;

import java.util.ArrayList;

import pt.up.fc.dcc.mousetrap.adapter.TrapsListAdapter;
import pt.up.fc.dcc.mousetrap.models.ModelStore;
import pt.up.fc.dcc.mousetrap.models.Trap;
import pt.up.fc.dcc.mousetrap.models.TrapImage;
import pt.up.fc.dcc.mousetrap.mqtt.MqttClient;
import pt.up.fc.dcc.mousetrap.mqtt.Topic;
import pt.up.fc.dcc.mousetrap.utils.Auth;
import pt.up.fc.dcc.mousetrap.utils.PhotoStorageClient;

public class MultiTrapsActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    private TrapsListAdapter adapter;
    private ArrayList<Trap> traps = new ArrayList<>();

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_multi_traps);

        adapter = new TrapsListAdapter(this);

        GridView gridView = (GridView) findViewById(R.id.grid_view);
        gridView.setAdapter(adapter);

        gridView.setOnItemClickListener(new AdapterView.OnItemClickListener() {

            @Override
            public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position, long id) {
                Trap trap = (Trap) parent.getAdapter().getItem(position);

                Intent trapIntent = new Intent(view.getContext(), SingleTrapActivity.class);
                trapIntent.putExtra("trap", trap);
                startActivityForResult(trapIntent, 0);

            }
        });

        // traps list
        Intent intent = getIntent();
        if (intent.getStringArrayExtra("traps") != null) {
            String[] trapsIds = intent.getStringArrayExtra("traps");
            for (String trapId: trapsIds) {
                traps.add(ModelStore.getInstance(App.getContext()).retrieve(trapId,
                        new Trap(trapId)));
            }
        }

        loadTraps();

        // check if opening from notification
        if (intent.getBooleanExtra("notification", false)) {
            Trap trap = (Trap) intent.getSerializableExtra("trap");

            if (intent.getIntExtra("door", -1) != -1)
                MqttClient.getInstance().publish(Topic.DOOR, trap.getId(),
                        String.valueOf(intent.getIntExtra("door", -1)));

            Intent trapIntent = new Intent(this, SingleTrapActivity.class);
            trapIntent.putExtra("trap", trap);
            startActivityForResult(trapIntent, 0);
        }

    }

    @Override
    protected void onNewIntent(Intent intent) {
        super.onNewIntent(intent);

        // check if opening from notification
        if (intent.getBooleanExtra("notification", false)) {
            Trap trap = (Trap) intent.getSerializableExtra("trap");

            if (intent.getIntExtra("door", -1) != -1)
                MqttClient.getInstance().publish(Topic.DOOR, trap.getId(),
                        String.valueOf(intent.getIntExtra("door", -1)));

            Intent trapIntent = new Intent(this, SingleTrapActivity.class);
            trapIntent.putExtra("trap", trap);
            startActivityForResult(trapIntent, 0);
        }
    }

    private void loadTraps() {

        for (final Trap trap : traps) {

            PhotoStorageClient.getPhotos(trap.getId(), 10, new PhotoStorageClient.PhotosRunnable() {
                @Override
                public void run() {
                    for (TrapImage img : getPhotos())
                        trap.addImage(img);
                }
            });

            adapter.add(trap);
        }
    }

    @Override
    protected void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) {

        for (Trap trap : traps)
            ModelStore.getInstance(App.getContext()).store(trap);

        super.onSaveInstanceState(outState);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onDestroy() {

        for (Trap trap : traps) {
            ModelStore.getInstance(App.getContext()).store(trap);

            MqttClient.getInstance().addAlertListener(trap.getId(), adapter);
            MqttClient.getInstance().addPictureListener(trap.getId(), adapter);
            MqttClient.getInstance().addDoorStateListener(trap.getId(), adapter);
            MqttClient.getInstance().addTimeoutAckListener(trap.getId(), adapter);
        }

        super.onDestroy();
    }

    @Override
    protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
        super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);

        if (resultCode == 101) {
            Trap trap = (Trap) data.getSerializableExtra("trap");
            removeTrap(trap);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_multi_traps, menu);
        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        switch (item.getItemId()) {
            case R.id.action_add:
                // User chose the "Add" action

                popupAddTrap();

                return true;

            default:
                // If we got here, the user's action was not recognized.
                // Invoke the superclass to handle it.
                return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);

        }
    }

    /**
     * Popup to add a trap
     */
    private void popupAddTrap() {

        AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
        builder.setTitle("Add trap");

        View viewInflated = LayoutInflater.from(this).inflate(R.layout.fragment_insert_trap_dialog,
                (ViewGroup) findViewById(android.support.v7.appcompat.R.id.contentPanel), false);

        final EditText input = (EditText) viewInflated.findViewById(R.id.text_trap_id);

        builder.setView(viewInflated);

        builder.setPositiveButton(android.R.string.ok, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
                dialog.dismiss();

                final String trapId = input.getText().toString();

                Auth.getInstance().registerDeviceTopics(trapId, new Runnable() {
                    @Override
                    public void run() {
                        addTrap(new Trap(trapId));
                        MqttClient.getInstance().connect();
                    }
                });
            }
        });

        builder.setNegativeButton(android.R.string.cancel, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
                dialog.cancel();
            }
        });

        builder.show();
    }

    /**
     * Add trap to adapter
     * @param trap new trap
     */
    public void addTrap(final Trap trap){
        runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                traps.add(trap);
                adapter.add(trap);
                findViewById(R.id.grid_view).invalidate();
            }
        });
    }

    /**
     * Remove trap from adapter
     * @param trap old trap
     */
    public void removeTrap(final Trap trap){
        runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                traps.remove(trap);
                adapter.remove(trap);
                findViewById(R.id.grid_view).invalidate();
            }
        });
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Upside Learning Wins Prestigious Learning Excellence Awards 2022
Upside Learning bags two awards in Design, Content Creation, & Video and Health, Safety, & Risk sub-categories.
Upside Learning, a leading service provider of end-to-end digital learning solutions, recently bagged 2 Learning Excellence Awards for 2022 for its client projects. The results were announced at a lunchtime event in the Britannia Suite at the National Conference Centre on Friday, April 8, 2022.
The awards are a testimony to Upside Learning's efforts in bringing real outcomes by creating cutting-edge learning solutions in order to deliver value and significantly impact business results. This year's winning entries were submitted for its client's projects under the New Thinking & Innovation and Marketing & Sales Functional categories. The winners are listed here.
Details of Winning Entries
The two wins under the broader categories 'New Thinking & Innovation' and 'Marketing & Sales Functional', are for the client projects – 'The Zee WAY – A Gamified Induction Programme' and 'Health, Safety and Environment Compliance Training for ISS', respectively.
Design, Content Creation, and Video – The Zee WAY A Gamified Induction Programme
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEE), a media conglomerate based in India, was looking to replace its instructor-led induction program that gave an overview of Zee's businesses, history, culture, and policies. ZEE partnered with Upside Learning to create a story-based training with gamified elements to provide an engaging learning experience to its new employees. Through a hero's journey, the learners traveled through seven different milestones, each covering a critical topic, and earned rewards to successfully complete the End Game. The program successfully mirrored the company ethos and reflected their purpose – "to create the extraordinary".
Health, Safety, and Risk- ISS Health, Safety, and Environment Compliance Training
To supplement existing safety-related interventions, ISS partnered with Upside Learning to develop a training intervention to introduce safety practices to its new employees. This would ensure new joiners could familiarize themselves with ISS's safety culture, the need for it, and how employees could contribute to it. The training was meant to be mandatory for all the frontline employees before they started working on their tasks. It is a highly visual, fully responsive, and effective learning experience accessible to all frontline ISS employees across various age groups and experience levels.
Amit Garg, Founder and CEO of Upside Learning, is thrilled with this win. He said, "My joy knows no bounds. The fact that this win came in at the heels of Upside Learning's 18th anniversary has taken the excitement to another level. It is an honor to be winning these awards for the work we have done for our esteemed clients. Grateful to our forever-motivated team, our clients, partners, and everybody who contributed towards this recognition."
About Learning Excellence Awards
The Learning Excellence Awards are business awards for the whole business training/learning and development sector. They are UK-based but attract overseas entries. The Awards are impartial and independent and look to reward relevant, agile, innovative, excellent, and effective initiatives, programs, and products and services wherever they may be found. Each year, the Awards are open to in-house training, learning, and development teams and activities, to external professional practitioners and to suppliers in the sector.
About Upside Learning
Since 2004, Upside Learning has consistently delivered best-in-class custom learning solutions to organizations worldwide. The focal point has been to help customers deliver real outcomes by helping them achieve performance improvements that are aligned with their business objectives. Upside Learning aims to make a real impact on organizational metrics and behaviors by supporting organizations to bolster their core teams.
With experience in offerings such as Virtual Instructor-led Training, Custom Learning, Learning Consultancy, Performance Support Aids, eBooks, or Game-based learning, Upside Learning strives to add value to every learning solution it creates.
Upside Learning aims to go beyond the ordinary and predictable with its mantra of 'Go Beyond'. As part of the 'Go Beyond' initiative, Upside Learning nudges its internal teams, customers, and the entire L&D community to treat every learning initiative as an enabler of employee performance. The 'L&D Go Beyond Podcast' is a significant and noteworthy part of this initiative, which features workplace learning leaders from across the globe sharing their insights and experiences. Over the years, Upside Learning has won more than 90 awards and accolades, including several Brandon Hall Group Excellence awards.
Learn more about Upside Learning at: www.upsidelearning.com
Upside Learning Recognized as Solid Performer in the 2022 Fosway 9-Grid™ for Digital Learning
Upside Learning Brings Home 12 Esteemed Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards


text:
Brendan Lemieux suspended 5 games for biting Brady Tkachuk
Kyle Cantlon
·Editor
Five for biting.
That's the punishment the NHL has settled on for Brendan Lemieux, as the Los Angeles Kings forward was suspended five games for taking a chomp out of Brady Tkachuk's hand during a scrum last Saturday.
Lemieux was assessed a match penalty with just over six minutes remaining in the final frame of the game against the Ottawa Senators.
"In the ensuing scrum, Lemieux follows Tkachuk into the corner in support of his teammate and engages (Tkachuk) from behind. Tkachuk spins and drops his gloves to immediately engage with the player who has grabbed him. Lemieux drops his gloves, and the two grab ahold of each other — wrestling briefly before Tkachuk takes Lemieux down to the ice," the NHL said in its video explanation of the decision.
"While on the ice, Lemieux, feeling Tkachuk's hands on his face as they wrestle, bites Tkachuk on his bare left hand and does so with a substantial amount of force.
"The two continue wrestling and throwing punches as the linesmen attempt to separate them. As the two are being separated, Tkachuk, while still on the ice, immediately informs the officials that Lemieux bit him as he examined his own hands, showing the officials that he is bleeding."
Kings forward Brendan Lemieux will have to wait a few games before indulging in anymore mid-game feasts.
Speaking to reporters after the incident on Saturday, Tkachuk absolutely went off on Lemieux, calling him a "brickhead" while adding some other glorious verbal daggers to his post-game rant.
"The guy's just a joke. He shouldn't be in the league. This guy's gutless. No other team wants him, he's going to keep begging to be in the NHL but no other team is going to want him, he's an absolute joke. I can't even wrap my head around it. People don't even do this. He's just a bad guy.
"It's outrageous. Kids don't even do that anymore. Babies do that. I don't even know what he was thinking, he's just a complete brick head. He's got nothing up there. Bad guy, bad player, but what a joke he is."
Key part of this ruling: "While circumstantial evidence supports the argument that Lemieux may have bitten Tkachuk multiple times during this fight, we are limiting our review of this incident to the bite that occurs almost immediately after the players fall to the ice." https://t.co/0X3bGynzBx
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) December 1, 2021
Brady's older brother, Matthew, and his Calgary Flames are set to visit the Kings on Thursday but, unfortunately for fans of chaos, Lemieux's suspension means there won't be any sibling-related revenge in the cards — and least not for now.
Senators coach fields bizarre question in wake of Tkachuk-Lemieux bite
Evander Kane on suspension over report of fake vaccine card: 'I served my time'
Jack Hughes signs eight-year, $64M extension with Devils
Sean Dyche backs Burnley's forwards to deliver goals
The Clarets, who saw Chris Wood leave for Newcastle earlier this month, have scored just 16 Premier League goals in 17 games.
The Gardner News
Greater Gardner high school sports schedule for Saturday, Jan. 22 and Sunday, Jan. 23
Schedule of local high school sporting events for Saturday, Jan. 22
Is GE Stock Dead Money? 'Hell No,' Says CEO Larry Culp.
Barron's spoke with the CEO about the American icon's three-way split and how to ensure the stock doesn't wind up in deal purgatory during the process.


The mission of the Ottawa Hills Elementary Art program is to provide a unique educational experience in which students gain artistic skills, strengthen visual literacy, and develop a life-long appreciation and in-depth knowledge of the Great Masters of art, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Picasso and Vincent van Gogh. Students learn self-expression, artistic discipline, independence and collaboration, as well as a comprehensive appreciation of our rich artistic heritage. Specific skills, such as drawing, painting and clay, are carefully cultivated and challenged, inspired by various cultures throughout history. Children are encouraged to explore, create and reach their own full artistic potential.
Opportunities beyond the classroom include participation in art displays and our annual Art Fair competition; after school Art Camps; Artsonia's world-wide art gallery; Toledo Museum of Art tours; and creating art for Ottawa Hills Green Bear Ball fundraiser and many other community charities and organizations. We believe that creating art is one of the best ways to express yourself and communicate visually with others.